To RED, 200 Hours later.
I rarely finish long games, normally run out of steam. For example, of semi-recent games, I was not able to finish Skyrim, DA:inquisitor (or DA2, for that matter).
What kept me locked into this game wasn't even the story, per se, but rather the dialogue, and the characters. You guys just nailed that part. I didn't fast forward a single conversation... it was just so good. I laughed a lot, especially when Geralt spoke, I loved my sarcastic self, whose jokes often fell flat.
Other things I loved:
The overall graphics
The facial animation/expressions. First time I ever saw characters able to express themselves in a computer game,in a realistic way.
The quality of the voices, and that you didn't use the same actor again and again like *cough*skyrim*cough*
The landscape, terrain, variety of areas, etc
The Lore. Seriously, crazy stuff. I need to read the books now.
Choice and consequence, sometimes on a very minute level, sometimes huge.
Stuff that I felt was "meh", and would have made this awesome game even more awesomer.
Personally, I felt there was just a bit too much profanity, but I guess that is par for the course.
Similarly, it seems that the world is populated by honey, slutty women.
Game mechanics, in general, were lacking.
Specifically:
Combat. It was ok at first, but got pretty repetitive... and then there was just silly parts like doing a whirlwind at level 25 against a level 7 bandit who somehow parried every single time... and guys with shields were harder to kill than a Royal Wyvern
The skill system was also kind of blah. I am sure there are different kinds of builds, but really, once you have that concoction of Ekinda or whatever its called that restores health when you expend stamina, the difficulty just ends. Every time you need health just do a whirlwind.
Even without that encoction, I found that the first 20 points are all that really matter.
Loot - silver swords raining from the sky. Can't walk two inches without falling over millions of swords, armor, etc, and its all pretty much vendor trash. You guys went from one extreme in Witcher 1 where there was almost no loot, to the clear other side of the spectrum.
Crafting - given the existence of the ursine, feline and griffon sets, all the rest was pretty much filler.
PC controls for movement were kind of clunky, horse was the worst, boat wasn't that bad.
The whole ignite/extinguish thing was amusing for abiout an hour and then just got in my way.
... but again. having said all that, this was, without a doubt, the best RPG I think I have ever played ... and I am fairly certain I have played every RPG to come out since Akallabeth, Wizardry 1 and those games (Yes, I am *that* old).
I can't wait to see what you guys do next.